The Spanish Community in Vicente Blasco Ibáñez’s American Tour

cultural mediations in Uruguay and Paraguay

Abstract

This article examines Vicente Blasco Ibáñez’s American tour in 1909 through two stages usually considered secondary within the Río de la Plata itinerary: Uruguay and Paraguay. In contrast to interpretations that have understood the journey as a representative intellectual mission, the study presents it as a private cultural initiative based on the public exploitation of the author’s literary prestige, the mobilization of the Spanish community, and the use of public lectures as a commercial format. Through the analysis of hemerographic and documentary sources—with particular attention to Río de la Plata newspapers and to the press of the Spanish community—the article reconstructs the organizational and mediating mechanisms that made the tour possible, as well as the forms of social appropriation of the event. The contrast between the Uruguayan experience, marked by an uneven reception across cities such as Paysandú, Salto, and Montevideo, and the Paraguayan one, which was strongly institutionalised, highlights the extent to which the success of these initiatives depended on local dynamics of legitimation, the mobilisation of support networks, and the role of the social actors who sustained each visit.